I just installed Avast Free 2014 last night, I think I should have waited longer before updating.
Since the clean install, I have had all my shortcuts break (now fixed), and now the explorer scan don’t work. It keeps creating custom scans that don’t work. They are all named “???” and cannot be deleted. I get a scanning box that is blank. See the attachment.
There have been browser problems also. Currently a scan is running that I did not start and is not scheduled. I cannot seem to stop it.
Any suggestions? This is getting irritating and I am considering either going back to the previous Avast version or using a different antivirus program.
I installed Avast free from the same link you provided. I was using Avast free v8 before this install.
I used Avira before that, but Avast had been working fine for over a year.
Other security programs are Malwarebytes free (on demand only).
I saw such type of problem, uninstall avast using Asyn’s instruction, but delete manually AVAST Software folder, which located in windows xp in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ after runing avast uninstall utility: